Wednesday, November 01, 2006

Events Tonight

I got to talk to Schlesinger tonight for about a half hour. He's an interesting guy, and a cool guy who is appealing because he is seriously bucking the Republican party machine, and doing it explicitly. He is running for the seat because he feels that he has an outside shot at winning - he's looking at the 1970 Senate contest and thinking that a high 30s goal can elect him Senator. But he's also running because he's angry that Jodi Rell and the state and national Republican leaders threw him under the bus after cutting a deal with Joe Lieberman to merge political operations for this cycle. He's angry that the Republicans spread rumors about him and sullied his reputation. And he's angry at the machine lock that small groups of Republicans have had on the party on a state and national level.

Once again, I am somewhat abashed to report, Alan Schlesinger stole the show. He wasn't as flamboyant this time out (maybe sitting calms him), but he had some of the best lines and he has this disarming ability to speak as if what's coming out of his mouth (odd as some of it may be) exists somewhere in his brain as opposed to on those three by five cards your high school debate coach told you the always have at hand.

There seemed to be a cadre of Young Republicans in the audience and they heartily approved of his defense of the Bush tax cuts. On the other hand, the Lamont supporters ate up his characterization of Joe Lieberman as a shifty politician who says one thing and votes another.

CTBob also talked at length with Alan, who accused Joe of using his $387,000 petty cash on "street money:"

Schlesinger: "Well, it's an awful lot of petty cash. It's more than our whole campaign in petty cash. I'll tell ya, it's gotta be street money. I mean, it makes no other sense. I really thought the days of that were over, back in the early sixties, but I guess not. It's unfortunate."

Finally, a diarist at MLN reports from Ned's town hall event at Conn College tonight.